At that moment a female voice called out. Through her agony Caitlin saw Iris entering the lab.
Without thinking, Caitlin dropped the mic and left her chair. She forced a smile as she neared Iris. “I just need to step out for a moment and then we can go.”
“Are you sure? It got worse than I thought on the way here. We can always use the vending machines—”
“No, there’s that sandwich place on the other side of the street. That won’t be too bad, will it?”
Iris shrugged. “If you really want to… What’s going on? I don’t see Barry. I thought—”
Caitlin’s temple pounded. She brushed past Iris. “I’ll be right back.”
She all but darted out the lab. Instead of heading to the restrooms—as Iris no doubt thought—Caitlin went to one of the auxiliary labs seldom used these days. There, with only the dim light of the storm-wracked day to illuminate the room, she leaned against the nearest console, shut her eyes, and tried to calm her nerves.
How long she stood there she neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was stopping the pain… and something else. With the last powerful beat in her temples, she had felt that now-familiar cold sensation within, the same cold that generally accompanied the stirring of her metahuman powers.
A slight crackling sound stirred her from her efforts. She opened her eyes… and gasped.
Frost covered the console and its nearby surroundings. Frost, in a room just above seventy degrees.
“No… No… No…” Caitlin looked at her hands. Pale, cold hands. Killer Frost’s hands, appearing of their own accord.
She leaned toward the computer screen and tried to make out her reflection in the frosted glass.
Her skin and hair had already begun to change.
“This isn’t right. I have control of this now. I do.” Desperately, Caitlin grabbed at the wrist device. Cisco had taught her how to manipulate the controls in case she reached a critical point. Up until now Caitlin had been able to force back her powers, but this time she did as Cisco had explained.
The device vibrated briefly. Caitlin felt the coldness cease spreading… but unfortunately it did not recede.
There was another crash of thunder—
Caitlin gasped again as she felt the chill subside slightly. Encouraged, she concentrated harder on suppressing it. To her relief, it began to fade. In seconds, her hands had returned to normal and the frost had started to fade from the console.
“Caitlin?”
She spun around at the nearness of Iris’s voice in the hallway. Smoothing her dress and pushing back hair that had fallen in her face, she hurried out to meet the other woman.
Iris spotted her just as Caitlin shut the lab door behind her. “Caitlin! I got worried. Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine. I was in here earlier and remembered I’d forgotten to put something away.”
“H.R. said you barely got here before I did,” Iris commented. “Aren’t you feeling well? We could’ve done this another time.”
“No. No.” Caitlin smiled as best she could. “I really want to spend some time with you. I know things have gotten complicated for you with Barry and we hardly ever have time to see one another because of that.”
“What—”
“Hello, ladies!” H.R. came upon them with the suddenness of a ghost. He put a companionable arm around them both. To Iris, he said, “Cisco and I are sorry you didn’t catch Barry, but he probably won’t be coming in for some time. There’s no sign of the Weather Wizard, so he’s just going to patrol the city looking for anyone who needs help out in the storm.”
“The hole—” Caitlin blurted, finally recalling what had been going on before her incident.
“Is gone. Just like that a minute ago. Barry’s checked out the location thoroughly, but no sign of—no sign. Looks like it was nothing.”
“Barry’s okay?” Iris asked anxiously, mirroring Caitlin’s thoughts.
“He’s fine!” He turned to Caitlin. “Everything reads normal.”
“Oh, good,” Caitlin responded.
“Now, you two run off to that lunch Iris said she came for. If Cisco needs anything… Well, he can try to explain it to me. Go!”
Iris took Caitlin’s arm. “He’s right. We both need a little time to relax. Come on.”
Caitlin gave H.R. a last look over Iris’s shoulder. He solemnly winked, then made a gesture for her to keep moving. H.R. would clearly not tell what he had seen before and now that the device had been adjusted properly, Caitlin felt certain that this would be the last time she had to fight her powers.
With growing reassurance she walked out with Iris.
* * *
Cisco tapped a pen against the work desk as he studied the screen, only stopping both activities when H.R. returned.
“Any more new signs of that hole?” H.R. asked.
“No. No, it vanished as quickly as it appeared and hasn’t been back. Barry’s searching the riverfront again, but I doubt we’ll find anything there either. Can’t help feeling the Weather Wizard’s been testing something. Exactly what though I don’t know.” He leaned back. “Are they gone?”
“Yes.”
“Those readings from her were really strong, H.R., really strong. If they’d continued much longer, we’d have had a complete transformation. She would’ve become Killer Frost without even trying.”
“That’s why I told you about the first time even though I promised not to.”
“It wasn’t the first time. I just checked. There’s been at least half a dozen incidents. Fortunately, nothing strong enough. Still, we’ve got to do something. The device isn’t working right for some reason. I need to get her in here as soon as possible and find out why. I tell you, man, these last readings scare me.”
“Does she know you made the device so that it would alert you if she started to change involuntarily?”
“No. I didn’t want her to worry that her condition might have turned that bad—”
“So don’t tell her yet then.” H.R. suggested, grabbing his coffee cup. “Just like you two did with Barry. Try to figure out a solution so that she doesn’t go into fear mode. That might make her fully transform… and where would we be then? With Barry, we were talking pretty temporary, minutes maybe… but with Caitlin, she could lose control permanently. She clearly thinks she can handle it; let’s not upset that until you can do something about it.”
“Yeah.” Cisco nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking too. We need to be able to fix it. The device seems to be helping her again. That’ll buy us the time we need to figure out a better solution…” He swiveled his chair to face the screen again. “… and maybe while we’re at it help Barry catch the Weather Wizard.”
5
Sweat, not rain, dripped from Mardon as he knelt in the center of the room, exhausted. His pulse still pounded and his breathing came in gasps at first.
“It didn’t work, Mark… It didn’t work… You let me down again.”
“No…” the Weather Wizard muttered, his gaze on the floor. “No… it came close. I’m sure of it. We just didn’t gather enough energy together. Got to do better next time, that’s all. And if that’s not enough, figure out how to get even more.”
“All right, all right,” Clyde’s voice came from near his head. “So we go out and do it again right now!”
“No… not now. Too exhausted… and have to think.” Mardon ran a hand through his soaked hair. Blinking, he looked up in the direction of his brother’s voice, only to see nothing.
“Well, soon, right?” Clyde demanded from the shadows again. As Mardon stared his younger brother coalesced from the darkness. The breeze that accompanied Clyde forced the Weather Wizard to blink a moment. When he finished, it was to see Clyde standing over him.
“Soon, right.” Mark started to reach out a hand so that Clyde could help him up, but then remembered what had happened the first time. That made him vaguely recall when he had been lying face down in th
e storm just after his escape. At the time he thought he had felt hands lift him up, but that was not possible.
He shook his head. So many things were not supposed to be possible. Controlling the weather. Racing at supersonic speeds on foot. Mardon knew some of the other metahumans who had been created that same night and each one of them had had some ability that should have been “impossible”… until it was not.
So why wouldn’t conquering death, another “impossible”, fall as easily as the others? the Weather Wizard asked himself. In truth, even before his escape, Mark had been mentally fighting with himself over the possibility. That was what had made Clyde’s ghostly return all that more significant to him. Maybe I already felt him trying to come back…
His legs ached. Mark pushed himself back to a sitting position. “How long have I been out?”
“Yeah, I don’t exactly carry a watch these days, bro. Hours. That good enough?”
The Weather Wizard nodded. His stomach growled, verifying the lengthy span of time. Forcing himself to his feet, he went over to the small cache of supplies he and Clyde had stored in the safe house. It had never been planned that they would stay more than three or four days in any location, so the cache had been meager to start with. After his escape Mardon had eaten a full day’s rations in one sitting. That meant that with the meals that had followed he had reduced his supplies to just a few cans and some very dry crackers.
“I need more,” Mardon muttered. “I need a lot more.”
“Yeah, I’d like to eat, but you see… I can’t anymore.”
Mardon immediately felt ashamed. Here he was concerned about selfish matters when Clyde couldn’t even touch the tiniest morsel.
“Sorry,” the Weather Wizard murmured. “Soon as I get you back, I’ll make sure you get the biggest steak dinner possible.”
“With a baked potato smothered in all the fixings?”
Mardon grinned at the memory. “Yeah, smothered. I’ll set it all right again, Clyde. I swear!”
“You keep saying that until you do it.” As he spoke, Clyde started to fade into the darkness around Mardon. The wind picked up at the same time. “And make sure you do it…”
* * *
No, it definitely did not help to be the fastest man alive when one had no idea where to find one’s enemy, the Flash thought as he completed his two hundredth thorough search of Central City. There were, of course, places that he could not legally enter, but the Flash had refused to give in to any temptation that might make him forego those legalities. One way or another, he would find Mardon honestly, even if he had to search the city a thousand times or more.
Barry knew that he was also using the endless search for the Weather Wizard as an excuse not to talk with Iris about the growing gulf between them. It didn’t help that Joe had also started pestering him to deal with his daughter. That Joe had not dealt with the situation either was not lost on Barry.
This is ridiculous! All we need to do is talk this out, the three of us! If we could—
He barely evaded the lightning bolt that came crashing down right in front of him. Despite the near miss, the Flash was not overly disturbed; frighteningly, he had become almost accustomed to the storm’s unabated assault on him. By this time they were all pretty much certain that the storm was actively trying to either kill or disable the Flash. Yet if the Weather Wizard was responsible, his efforts showed a severe lack of focus.
That had evidently sparked some idea from Cisco, who took readings from each attack and matched them with previous ones. Unfortunately, each time the Flash hoped for progress, Cisco’s call concerned more mundane problems.
“Got a new one for you!” he called to Barry. “Power outage on 54th Street!”
“I’m already there.” The Flash was, too, having crossed eighteen blocks even as he spoke. He quickly surveyed the vicinity. “Looks like the entire area’s out. How long ago?”
“Five minutes! I would’ve noticed sooner, but with everything else, it fell between the cracks!”
“Not a problem. I didn’t pay it much mind either and I’m out here! Are they on it?”
“Yeah, there’s a crew close by. Thought you’d want to keep an eye on them in case they have trouble.”
“Will do and—hold on!” Out of the corner of his eye, the Flash caught a glimpse of a furtive figure with a tiny flashlight moving through an unlit store. “I think we’ve already got some looters!”
Cisco said nothing as the Flash raced to the store. As he neared, he noted two more figures. All three wore scarves over their noses and mouths. One held a shotgun while the others continued rummaging through the store.
Barry smiled grimly, welcoming the brief respite. He raced around until he found the door the trio had ripped open to get in.
“Never mind the safe,” muttered the man with the shotgun as the Flash entered. “Just hurry up and take what you can carry—”
The Flash paused a few feet in front of him. “Hi!”
The looter swore and fired… or would have if he had still had a shotgun in his hands.
“You did say to take what I could carry,” the Flash remarked with a slight smile as he raised the shotgun for the crook to see. “Not that I really have any need for it.”
The Flash raced to the front corner of the store, set down the weapon, and returned before the looter could even realize that anything had happened. Snarling, the disarmed crook swung at Barry.
By then, the Flash had already left him again to inspect the other looters. One carried a handgun stuffed in a pants pocket while the other appeared weaponless. Having taken stock of any potential threat they were to anyone who found them, the Flash removed a box from the looter with the handgun, took the weapon and set it with the shotgun, then moved the motionless figure to exactly where the speedster had just been standing.
The first looter’s fist collided with the jaw of the unsuspecting second crook. As Barry had judged, the blow would have been a strong one if it had connected with his own jaw. The second looter tumbled back, the punch rendering him unconscious.
As the first crook gaped at what he had somehow done, the Flash returned to the third, who was just noticing what had happened to the other pair. Barry paused behind him, then tapped the man’s shoulder.
The looter instinctively swung the flashlight Barry had seen him using earlier. The Flash seized him in mid-swing, carrying him to the first looter… where the third crook instead succeeded in hitting the first.
The blow did as well as the first Barry had set up. The first looter dropped like a rock, leaving the Flash alone with the second.
The final looter dropped his flashlight and raised his hands.
“Smart,” Barry commented.
Seconds later, he left the looter and his two unconscious partners bound in strong tape found in the repair section of the store. The brief confrontation had revitalized him. He prepared for a new and more thorough search of Central City—
—And a hailstorm spanning more than half the city battered hardest right where he ran.
The hail came down behind the Flash with a ferocity that startled him. “Cisco, are you getting any odd readings on this?”
“At this point I’d be surprised to find one that’s normal! They’re all over the place, but there’s some that I’m matching up with what we’ve got from your previous fights with the Weather Wizard!”
“Doesn’t he ever sleep?” Barry asked as he outraced the hail.
“You’d think—hang on! You just may have hit on something!”
“So long as something doesn’t hit on me—” Barely had the Flash made the remark than a wall of hail poured down. The velocity with which the hail struck made the padding in the suit of little value. The Flash grunted in pain as he tried to pick up speed and get ahead of the deadly assault.
He finally exited the hail. He knew he dared not slow his pace though. Veering to his right, the Flash raced on until he was far from the danger.
The moment he
found a proper overhang, Barry contacted Cisco. “That was too close! It had to be Mardon’s doing! He calculated for my speed by putting a danger ahead where he knew I’d run right into it!”
“That may be the case… or it may be even crazier than we think!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Cisco cleared his throat in a manner that the Flash noted often presaged some strange piece of information. “We’ve been assuming a connection between the storm and the Weather Wizard from the beginning even though his condition in Iron Heights should’ve prevented that, right?”
Barry eyed the foreboding sky, wary of the next threat it might unleash on him. “But we guessed correctly, didn’t we? It was him!”
“Yeah, that’s the thing though. We shouldn’t have been right. The Weather Wizard should have been tightly under control!”
“And he wasn’t? How?”
“Haven’t figured that out exactly,” Cisco replied, “but I did verify that he’s definitely influencing this storm.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“You asked me if Mardon ever slept. I know how you meant it, but it made me look over some records from Iron Heights—”
Barry frowned. “Do they know how often you dig into their records?”
“You know me. I am the epitome of subtlety in all things, especially hacking. Anyway, they kept a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week monitoring of his thoughts. Not sure exactly all the reasons why, but what’s important is I finally got a match with what we’ve been recording.”
“Cisco, you’re still not making any sense.”
“Our data matches what Iron Heights recorded after they hooked him up to the latest helmet, the one that’s got some background design data from the Wizard Wand. Those particular readings come from whenever Mardon was in REM sleep.”
Barry wasn’t certain he had heard correctly. “When he was dreaming?”
“Exactly! For some reason his subconscious stirred up and began to have an effect on his metahuman abilities. This whole storm is due to him and he might not even realize it himself!”
“Great. Bad enough we have to fight him, we have to do it in a storm from out of his dreams.”
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